Posted
by
Zonk
on Tuesday April 26, 2005 @02:57PM
from the struggling-artist-I'm-sure dept.

GuyMannDude writes "Wired has a lengthy article about what lies ahead for George Lucas. Originally a member of a maverick group of young filmmakers who were at odds with the thinking and methods of the major studios, he has now become the most financially successful director in history by marketing the ultimate popcorn fodder. With the Star Wars saga ending, Lucas now struggles with how to reinvent himself." I imagine it will be hard to get away from Star Wars, given that he's producing television shows set in the fictional universe.

Bit serially, this guy has done a lot for digital cinema and his accumulated capital seems most appropriately put to use cultivating young talent. The academic cinema schools where he and his contemporaries got their start just aren't what they used to be but he could certainly help advance the state of the art in home "home schooled" digital movie production.

This would get kids in the hinterlands producing movies from their own myths, starting from the same age Spielberg was when he first got a hold of a movie camera.

Probably the best way to do it would be to get together with someone like John Carmack and define a series of prize awards for technologies that are critical to bringing the cost of movie production down.

I disagree. I know the standard Slashdot claim is that Lucas is only in it for the money. Squeezing the last dollars out of your childhood memories, etc.

But I don't believe it.

Look at the way he lives. Watch any of the biographies on him. He has never been someone in it for the money. See Donald Trump for an example of how someone in it for the money lives. George could afford a wildly lavish lifestyle. But he doesn't live it.

All the money goes back into the process. ILM. THX. Skywalker Sound. LucasArts. Etc. He likes the job. He likes creating stuff. He likes being a part of new filmmaking technology. That's what he is in it for.

I'll readily agree that he isn't necessarily very good at making movies. At least, not at making good movies. But he hit it big with Star Wars (ANH), and has leveraged it to continute doing what he likes. Fox studios would do anything to get 7-9 made, but it isn't their decision. They gave that right to Lucas back in the 70s.

Originally a member of a maverick group of young filmmakers who were at odds with the thinking and methods of the major studios, he has now become the most financially successful director in history by marketing the ultimate popcorn fodder.

isn't this just the way it goes?

the counter-culture becomes the over-the-counter culture.

Maybe we could get those hinterland kids to produce Jar-Jar cups for taco bell, or Obiwan Bobble heads for your car..

Probably the best way to do it would be to get together with someone like John Carmack and define a series of prize awards for technologies that are critical to bringing the cost of movie production down.

You mean, like a DV camcorder and a PC?! Or custom flash animations? Or Machinima? Or an Intel 'Play' ($100 or less at toy stores everywhere)?

Seriously, someone emailed me a 1-minute, 20-frame animated gif that made me laugh myself silly (google 'lord-of-the-rings really-really'). Napoleon Dynamite (a so-so flick) cost $60,000. 401-the-movie (or whatever that homebrew flick was called) was done by two guys in a garage. Whether you go gonzo and buy old gear (early video toasters are STUPID cheap on ebay, for the capability they have) or buy new consumer/hobbyist gear (toys or personal gear), you can create stuff easily nowadays. And once done, between burnable discs, torrents and viral marketing and websites, good material can be distributed more easily than ever, too.

The difference between a damn-funny personal movie and commercial cinema isn't in the creativity (the writing, editing, acting, etc). It's all the details. I judged a regional film fest last year, and the judges instinctively 'cut slack' to beginner projects. If the content is good, everyone tolerates cut corners. But, once there's money to be made, you have to go back and reshoot, paying attention to the details.

Until the goal is truly going commercial, people can do amazing stuff just using COTS gadgetry and a PC. The capability is there sixteen different ways to sundown. Hell, people can do cool stuff in freakin' Powerpoint, as David Byrne demonstrated last year.

I'm sure there are technical hardware improvements possible. But they're not the barrier. Competitions or websites giving these airtime/attention, busted copyright laws (it should be legal/cheap (via compulsory licensing?) to co-opt content like LOTR RRSE does) and desire and experience are about the only impediments.

The details? I am SO not an expert, but from what I've gleaned from friends that are:

The *details* are the zillion budget items for a movie: sets, lighting, sound, special effects, costumes, makeup, etc etc etc. They're manpower-intensive, use specialized gear, and perfection in these crafts only comes with experience. Otherwise, the audience will notice.

Every one of the 200 names that go zinging past at a movie's end represents a category of details important enough that the show hired a specialist. Small, indy films cut corners on these, but that just means people try to do several jobs at once, and at some point the audience will start to notice.

So, if you wanna do things right, you hire some help. Once you grow beyond a team of a few people, start planning a la Brooks' mythical man-month, where each sixth person needs a manager. That gets fun, because the boss role is split between some guy too distracted to care about half of the details (the director) and people hired to handle these details as transparently as possible. Add in accountants and schedulers and people to round up the crafts needed or get bids for the work being done, etc. Even on a good day, it really starts to look like a wierdass engineering project by the time you're done. Once costs stretch the budget (and they will, whether you're doing Titanic or a documentary) throw in someone obsessed with budget (producer). If you're sadistic, imagine the worst-case of the conflict between director and producer.

Then, do everything on insane interdependent timelines: sets can take weeks to assemble, and hours to touch up before filming. Makeup often starts at 4am, there's a continual flow of 'plan shot, make adjustments to fit plan, shoot, repeat', so that actors are sometimes only onstage for a few hours total spaced over as much as a 16-hour day, and in addition to the crafts, security, catering, medics, etc. are all needed to help all these people throughout that long day. Add external factors (weather, lost gear, changes in story, disappearing cast members).

The end result is fairly inefficient, with dozens of people waiting for their next task, but billing for the whole day. Spending rates soar, but each person you remove causes tiny gaps and mistakes or slows things down immensely. A director pausing to review a shot also means everyone else is pausing to wait for him. But not pausing could mean rebuilding the set, flying actors back in, etc. when a shot is deemed unworkable...

I don't see gadgets *solving* a lot of this. And as they do, new complications are introduced. For example, DV allows better immediate-review capability than film. That saves $$$loads$$$ on film, but increases the chance for delays. Sound gear gets better, but audience expectations increase. Special effects are a never-ending race with audience expectations, too.

If you have a show-business career that lasts long enough, the media will eventually describe you as "struggling to reinvent" yourself. The term conjures up an image of an aging hot-babe or obese Elvis whose vehicle to fame has run out of gas, and they're sort of pathetically trying to get attention. I don't think this describes Lucas at all. At this point he is free to do whatever he wants for the rest of his life. If you read the article it sounds like he intends to take advantage of that, returning to th

...returning to the types of films he wanted to make when he started out.

I fully agree with your summation here. I am doubtful, however, that he'll succeed in this effort. This is the dream of any aged artist. Oh, if Metallica could record another album of the caliber of "Kill 'em All"!! Or if Slayer could create another "Reign in Blood." Or the Beastie Boys could revisit "Paul's Boutique" again.

They can't. Maturity and success has fogged their third eye. It's only a very rare breed of successful arti

Now that his first group of fans has grown up, there is a whole new area of filmmaking that he hasn't explored yet: Star Wars porn. I mean who wouldn't pay good money to see a wookie getting it on with a bunch of ewoks?

Since when has the star wars saga come to an end? He's working on two new series for television, based on Star Wars. The third film isn't even out yet - and there's still the possibility of episodes seven, eigh and nine. Not to mention the various release versions that will come out over the next decade to make money off of the morons who buy everything with the words "star wars" on them.

If Lucas is stuck in a rut, it's his own doing. He's put out so much crap based on his original three pieces of crap alm

Well, he's been doing mostly Star Wars for the last decade or so. But before that he helped write Indiana Jones, and a lot of people thought that was pretty good. He also did the story for Willow, which a lot of people liked.

And as another poster mentioned American Graffiti was quite good, with the very, very young Harrison Ford. Maybe what he needs to do is rewatch American Graffiti, which is a very different movie from everything else he's done. That's a whole non-scifi/fantasy career track he abanandoned 30+ years ago he could revisit. Perhaps he should stop trying to tell big stories and tell little ones instead.

And Lucas isn't quite done fiddling with Star Wars. Two more TV spinoffs are in the works - one a live-action series, the other in the vein of Cartoon Network's Clone Wars - plus he's overseeing yet another rerelease of all six films, this time digitally remastered in 3-D.

Looks like you'll get your wish! Greedo firing first in 3D! Maybe the new version will have Solo dodging the shot in Matrix-esque bullet time!

As several others have pointed out, there's already been a sequel. The solution is obvious: it's prequel time!

Coming next summer: Clean, American Walls!

Soon afterwards, we'll see a "re-release" of the original movie. Of course, Ron Howard will drive a flying car in this one because that's really what Lucas wanted all along. And Harrison Ford's bit character will be replaced by a computer-generated, talking duck. And Wolfman will be-- get this-- an actual Wolf-Man! This is going to be great!

Lucas should have stuck to what he was good at: having a fertile imagination, having the knack of transferring the detailed worlds he created to the big screen and being a very successfull business man in terms of negotiating with the big studios merchandising rights and so on.

Unfortunately he made the huge mistake of trying to be director again, instead of just a producer. IMHO, the best Star Wars movies where episodes V and VI, both of which he didn't direct.

Maybe he could come up with something totally new and awe inspiring with SOME story this time. Gone are the days where eye candy was enough to make a great hit.

Bull. Look at how much the "cleaned up" rereleases of IV-VI grossed. Look at what Ep2 grossed and how many people were all OMFG YODA LIGHT SABER FIGHT!!!!!!!!! The mere idea was fanservice. Pure eye candy. Straight up conceptual bullshit.

Oh, and that fanservice piece of CRAP grossed $649,476,740 worldwide.

Yeah, that doesn't beat Titanic but I'll be damned if the movie had anything I'd consider "redeeming" from a non eye-candy perspective. And Lucas is still rolling in dough.

IMHO, the best Star Wars movies where episodes V and VI, both of which he didn't direct.

Are you freaking serious? ROTJ was easily the worst movie of the original trilogy. In fact I'd say it battles it out with TPM for the worst movie in the series. The best thing I can usually say about it is that it resolves the series nicely, and episode III makes it much better.

Certainly in five or ten years we'll get new, blu-ray hi-def versions of I thru III, with Lucas saying in interviews "I added the new scenes to get the movie I really wanted, which I didn't get back then."

American Graffiti?
THX-1138?
These were not good movies? Or do they just not count because they were made before you were born?

I'll admit, Lucas has had some real stinkers (Howard the Duck, Willow). And I've been less than impressed with Eps I and II. But I wouldn't write the guy off completely just yet. He did have some real talent once upon a time. Hopefully he can rediscover it.

Willow seemed (to me) like a tired retread of Star Wars ideas (kind of like 'Days of Thunder' to 'Top Gun'). Anyway, since you've deliberately made it harder by adding the restriction that "series count as one movie", how about:

George Lucas is backing the development of a 350 million dollar studio that will combine the functionality of movie special effects with the equipment for video game animation and design features. By combining these two very closely related fields into one mega-location, G.L. is going to ultimately have an impact on entertainment that goes well beyond the scope of "Star Wars" - but even with that titanian accomplishment, there is little chance he will be remembered as such.
Ultimately, the innovation that gave him his status is the same innovation that will be tagged to his name inside every electronic wikipedia of the future, and he can't do anything to change that.
While many of us rightfully bashed Lucas' work on the first and second (fourth and fifth) Star Wars movies, myself included, he deserves the credit he has earned as a producer and financeer of special effects.
Jar Jar sucks, but G.L. will always be a hero in my book for the contributions he has made to computer animation and special effects over the course of his career.

when you live at SKYWALKER RANCH.
Anyway, I think Lucas does have a lot of strengths, it's just that coming up with an emotionally compelling story isn't one of them. What if he teamed up with existing sci fi writers and brought their stories to the screen? He would be a great producer, and then he could help find up-and-coming directors and authors.

No, Lucas was a film-school hack who's never made a really imaginative movie. His one claim to serious filmmaking was American Grafitti, which has some technical highpoints, but made no real attempt to tell a story. Then Joseph Campbell taught him how mine the mythological tradition -- which in practice came down to finding cool movies and ripping off their better scenes. The result was Star Wars, which I've always seen as the cinematic equivalent of a theme park ride. Which a lot of people seem to like -- but it's not an achievement that qualifies you as a "Maverik Filmmaker".

Do you know what "Maverick" means? Hint: It has nothing to do with how good his films are.

Lucas is a maverick because he snubbed the studio system *and* the various Hollywood unions, including the Actor's and Director's Guild and made big-budget blockbuster *independent* films. (Lucas paid for The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi from his profits from Star Wars; no studio backed him.)

The closest modern director would probably be Robert Rodriguez, especially considering his recent fight with th

Star Wars was/is a great idea, but the Empire Strikes Back was the best movie of the series in my opinion. It was directed by Irvin Kershner, screenplay written with Lawrence Kasdan and produced by Gary Kurtz, Lucas had a lot of creative help in making that film which turned out to be wonderful.
To reinvent oneself, you have to create yourself in the first place. Star Wars was a culmination of his story ideas with actors and movie techniques that have never been seen before. This is the key to its success.
Unfortunately, time and time again when directors/actors/musicians get older and have kids, their creativity is geared toward kid-friendly productions that their own kids can watch or sing along with them. This G-rated kid-friendly mindset sometimes kills creativity. He needs to get back to his 1970s mindset where he had to create something that has never been seen/done/heard of before - and not worry about what his audience thinks. (easier said than done) The upcoming 3D Star Wars is a start, but it is still cashing in on an old idea. Anyway, good luck George!

I was checking out the imdb.com post of George Lucas. And all you see are Star Wars and related ( Video games etc... ). The Star Wars universe is cool and all that but that doesn't make it sustainable.
George Lucas and Steven Spielberg got together and created Indiana Jones.
Then there is also Howard the Duck, we will not go there.
I think George Lucas should try to make an experimental movie not about technology, future or space. Just a movie about nothing with no storyline. That is what makes a good dire

In several interviews, although strangely not really mentioned by the Wired reporter, he says he has several ideas for small independant films. Not in the Woody Allen sense indy, but REALLY indy, like a guy with a camera and a couple actors go out and do stuff on budgets of under $1M.

These would unlikely be sci-fci (his words not mine) and likely be dramas and, again in his own words, have exactly zero mass appeal. So, really niche films that are very unpopular or have radical thoughts or ideas wrapped into the narrative.

I don't know why he's chosen to do this. Unlike Speilberg and Schindler's List, he has no political or epic historical story to tell. I would say Schnidler's List is not exactly a mass market movie either.

If small indy film is where he wants to go back to, I think he should do it. He should become a professor at USC's film school. That is really what I think would give him the most happiness. Imagine the wait list for that course.

The comparison to Vader in TFA seems to be an appropriate one. In the movies, Vader can't find redemption until his son comes along. In real life, it may be the heirs to his legacy who can redeem him from high-budget schlock.

> Trust me George... you can only go up from here if you follow> these simple instructions.

This is getting annoying.

George Lucas doesn't read Slashdot, and he probably never will.

We're all sorry he did not use your saliva-encrusted fan fiction as the basis for his script for Episodes I-III, but millions of people enjoyed the movies anyway.

Comments such as yours and of the two dozen other minority ranters on Slashdot are getting irritating to no end. If you don't like the movies, fine -- click on Preferences, then click on Homepage, and de-select Star Wars. There! wasn't that easy?

I hope George Lucas makes Jar-Jar a freakin' Jedi Master in Episode III just to piss off the "George Lucas killed my childhood" crowd.

Comments such as yours are even more irritating. Just because someone has a negative opinion doesn't mean they should not post. The poster clearly has an interest in Star Wars, I don't think he seriously expected Lucas to read it, he simply wanted to express how he felt about his latest works. Cripes, dissent is half of nerd commentary, give the man a break.

You know, before I answer any more questions there's something I wanted to say. Having read all your posts over the years, and... I've spoken to many of you, and some of you have traveled... y'know... hundreds of miles to be here, I'd just like to say... GET A LIFE, will you people? I mean, for crying out loud, it's just a movie!

I mean, look at you, look at the way you're dressed! You've turned an enjoyable little job, that Lucas did as a lark for a few years, into a COLOSSAL WASTE OF TIME! I mean, how old are you people? What have you done with yourselves?

You, you must be almost 30... have you ever kissed a girl? I didn't think so! There's a whole world out there! When I was your age, I didn't watch movies! I LIVED! So... move out of your parent's basements! And get your own apartments and GROW THE HELL UP! I mean, it's just a movie dammit, IT'S JUST A MOVIE!

Everyone's so quick to bash Lucas, but seriously, have you people been paying any attention to his media campaign lately? He's really coming off like he's sorry for ep 1 & 2, and the whole special edition thing... I mean, ep is gonna be PG-13?!? He's said it'll be "Star Wars goes to Hell," for chissakes. That doesn't sound like the words of a man milking some cash-cow for all its worth... If it were, he'd be coming with more furry little ewaks.

Say what you want, but Lucas has always stuck to his guns over the years, creating HIS vision on the screen, not kowtowing what to a bunch of acned sci-fi dorks want to see. That takes integrity. Only time will tell if he can withstand the onslaught of attacks from lesser "fans" who probably never even filmed so much as a school play!

Let him outline and storyboard - it's obvious the man has is capable of generating the occasional zinger, but if the most recent SW movies have proved anything, it's that depth isn't something he's capable of. Else the "itty bitty little thing blows up the HUGE MEGA STUPIDBAD THING" would have been used as the climax of ONE movie in the series, instead of THREE (possibly four, haven't seen ep3 yet and can honestly say I have lower expectations for it than I did for the third Matrix film, which was fucking

... the third Matrix film, which was fucking DRAGONBALL Z with sunglasses)

Best "Matrix: Revolutions" review 3var!!!

Also, did you notice that the shot of Neo being carried off by the machines was a frame-for-frame rip-off of the Ohm hoisting up Nausicaa in Miyazaki's vastly superior work, "Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind"?

Not to mention the final Neo vs. Smith showdown mirroring another superior film: "Dark City"... only without making sense in the context of the story.

What does that leave? Producing. You give the cash and some ideas, let others do the work.

Actually, you've missed what he's really good at and what the article hints at - editing the film into something that is very watchable.

Lucas has an amazing ability as a visual and audible story teller. He has the ability to place the viewer in the middle of the scene and make them feel as if they are a part of it. It is important to note that he worries about the sound just as much as the picture and they do merge seamlessly together.

He's the anti-Kevin Smith. Lucas has saddled himself with a story that everybody knows how it is going to play itself out, but he has managed to create some visually entertaining pieces of film along the way. Smith is the opposite, when he's at the top of his game you don't know what to expect at the end, but you know you'll be entertained by the dialog and bored by static cameras four to six feet from the talent.

The idea of Lucas being the anti-Kevin Smith got me to wondering what you would get if they were to collaborate. Smith would provide the story, dialog and characters while Lucas would make the movie visually and aurally interesting.

Hmmm... Kevin, if you're reading this, have your people talk to my people and we'll talk.